Far lovelier! pity fwells the tide of love.
And will not the severe excuse a sigh?
Scorn the proud man that is asham'd to weep;
Our tears indulg'd indeed deserve our shame.
Ye that e'er loft an angel! pity me.
Soon as the luftre languifht in her eye,
Dawning a dimmer day on human fight;
And on her cheek, the refidence of spring,
Pale omen fat; and scatter'd fears around
On all that faw (and who would cease to gaze,
That once had feen?) with hafte, parental haste,
I flew, I fnatch'd her from the rigid north,
Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew,
And bore her nearer to the fun; the fun
(As if the fun could envy) checkt his beam,
Deny'd his wonted fuccour; nor with more
Regret beheld her drooping, than the bells
Of lilies; faireft lilies, not fo fair!
Queen lilies! and ye painted populace!
Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrofial lives;
In morn and evening dew, your beauties bathe,
And drink the fun; which gives your cheeks to glow,
And out-blush (mine excepted) every fair;
You gladlier grew, ambitious of her hand,
Which often cropt your odours, incense meet
To thought fo pure! Ye lovely fugitives!
Coeval race with man! for man you smile;
Why not smile at him too? You share indeed
His fudden pass; but not his constant pain.
So man is made, nought ministers delight,
By what his glowing paffions can engage;
And glowing paffions, bent on aught below,
Muft, foon or late, with anguish turn the scale;
And anguish, after rapture, how fevere!
Rapture? Bold man! who tempt'ft the wrath divine, 140 By plucking fruit denied to mortal taste,
While here, prefuming on the rights of heaven.
For transport dost thou call on every hour,
Lorenzo? At thy friend's expence, be wife;
Lean not on earth; 'twill pierce thee to the heart; 145 A broken reed, at beft; but, oft, a spear;
On its fharp point peace bleeds, and hope expires.
Turn, hopeless thought! turn from her:-Thought repell'd
Refenting rallies, and wakes every woe.
Snatch'd ere thy prime! and in thy bridal hour!
And when kind fortune, with thy lover, fmil'd!
And when high flavour'd thy fresh opening joys!
And when blind man pronounc'd thy blifs complete !
And on a foreign fhore; where strangers wept!
Strangers to Thee; and, more furprising still,
Strangers to Kindness, wept their eyes let fall
Inhuman tears; strange tears! that trickled down
From marble hearts! obdurate tendernefs!
A tenderness that call'd them more fevere;
In spite of nature's foft perfuafion, steel'd;
While nature melted, fuperftition rav'd;
That mourn'd the dead; and this denied a grave.
Their fighs incens'd; fighs foreign to the will!
Their will the tiger suck'd, outrag'd the storm.
For, oh! the curft ungodliness of zeal!
While finful flefb relented, spirit nurst
In blind infallibility's embrace,
The fainted fpirit petrify'd the breast;
Deny'd the charity of duft, to fpread
O'er duft a charity their dogs enjoy.
What could I do? What fuccour? What refource?
With pious facrilege, a grave I stole;
With impious piety, that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty; coward in my grief!
More like her murderer, than friend, I crept,
With foft-suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last figh.
I whisper'd what fhould echo through their realms.
Nor writ her name, whose tomb should pierce the skies.
Prefumptuous fear! How durft I dread her foes,
While nature's loudet dictates I obey'd?
Pardon neceffity, bleft fhade! Of grief
And indignation rival burfis I pour'd;
Half execration mingled with my prayer;
Kindled at man, while I his God ador'd;
Sore grudg`d the favage land her facred duft;
Stampt the curft foil; and with humanity
(Denied Narciffa) wifh'd them all a grave.
Glows my refentment into guilt? What guilt
Can equal violations of the dead?
The dead how facred! Sacred is the duft
Of this heaven-labour'd form, erect, divine!
This heaven-affum'd majestic robe of earth,
He deign'd to wear, who hung the vast expanse
With azure bright, and cloath'd the fun in gold.
When every paffion fleeps that can offend ;
When strikes us every motive that can melt;
When man can wreak his rancour uncontrol'd,
That strongest curb on infult and ill-will;
Then, fpleen to duft? the dust of innocence ?
An angel's duft?—This Lucifer transcends;
When he contended for the patriarch's bones,
'Twas not the ftrife of malice, but of pride;
The ftrife of pontiff pride, not pontiff gall.
For less than This is fhocking in a race
Moft wretched, but from ftreams of mutual love;
And uncreated, but for love divine;
And, but for love divine, this moment, loft,
By fate reforb'd, and funk in endless night.
Man hard of heart to man! Of horrid things
Moft horrid! 'Mid ftupendous, highly ftrange!
Yet oft his courtefies are fmoother wrongs;
Pride brandishes the favours He confers,
And contumelious his humanity:
What then his vengeance? Hear it not, ye
And thou, pale moon! turn paler at the found;
Man is to man the foreft, fureft ill.
A previous blast foretels the rifing storm;
O'erwhelming turrets threaten ere they fall ;
Volcanos bellow ere they difembogue;
Earth trembles ere her yawning jaws devour;
And smoke betrays the wide-confuming fire:
Ruin from man is moft conceal'd when near,
And fends the dreadful tidings in the blow.
Is this the flight of fancy? Would it were!
Heaven's Sovereign faves all beings, but himfelf,
That hideous fight, á naked human heart.
Fir'd is the Muse? And let the Muse be fir'd:
Who not inflam'd, when what he speaks, he feels,
And in the nerve most tender, in his friends?
Shame to mankind! Philander had his foes:
He felt the truths I fing, and I in Him.
But He, nor I, feel more: past ills, Narciffa!
Are funk in Thee, thou recent wound of heart!
Which bleeds with other cares, with other pangs; 235 Pangs numerous, as the numerous ills that fwarm'd
O'er thy diftinguish'd fate, and, clustering There
Thick as the locufts on the land of Nile,
Made death more deadly, and more dark the grave.
Reflect (if not forgot my touching tale)
How was each circumstance with afpics arm'd?
An aspic, Each! and All, an Hydra woe :
What ftrong Herculean virtue could fuffice?-
Or is it virtue to be conquer'd Here?
This hoary cheek a train of tears bedews;
And each tear mourns its own diftinct diftrefs;
And each distress, diftinctly mourn'd, demands
Of grief still more, as heighten'd by the whole.
A grief like this proprietors excludes:
Not friends alone fuch obfequies deplore;
They make Mankind the mourner; carry fighs
Far as the fatal Fame can wing her way;
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